The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), headquartered in Bengaluru is famous for its humongous missions such as the Mars Orbiter Mission which made India, the first nation to succeed on its maiden attempt to Mars, Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 to name a few. Currently the organization is in headlines for its development of the Green Propulsion method which is about adopting green technologies in its further missions to limit the environmental damage.
On the other hand, we have, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), a public technical and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, offering various undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the field of science, social science, architecture etc.
To ignite and propel the culture of research and development the two prestigious institutions have come together to form the Regional Academic Centre for Space (RAC-S) which will be situated at IIT (BHU). Their agreement is backed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed virtually on December 23, 2020, by Dr PV Venkata Krishnan, Director, Capacity Building Program Office, ISRO and Professor Pramod Kumar Jain, Director, IIT (BHU).
The Regional Academic Centre will act as a major facilitator to promote space technology activities in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. With its target to maximize the utilization of research potential, infrastructure and expertise available at both ISRO and IIT (BHU), the Centre will comprise institutes of excellence in the field of science and technology in each of these states which will be persuaded to participate in various research and development activities.
In this initiative, the University has a three-fold role to play. Firstly, it will act as a catalyst for awareness creation, capacity building and research and development activities of ISRO. Secondly, it will be a leader and project monitor of the regional academic Centre for space. Thirdly, it will, with the help of the Centre, leverage research in space science and space technology, agriculture, space application, telecommunications, water resources and meteorology to design developmental models for effective natural resource management.
The project holds a great significance in terms of the benefits it provides, which consists of short-term projects for students pursuing Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology from IIT (BHU) or associate institutions and long-term research and development projects which will lead up to the Ph.D. programme. Besides this, capacity building programmes such as conferences, exhibitions and short courses will also be organized to strengthen the knowledge base in the field. It is anticipated that this initiative will have beneficiaries from the Purvanchal and the central regions of the country.
This culmination of space and technology envisages to build a promising future for the upcoming research enthusiasts, will help address problems persisting due to overuse of natural resources, it will help gain momentum in the growth of the two institutions through their existing knowledge spillovers and will be a platform to spark innovations through projects they jointly undertake. Having said this, the country will be the major stakeholder to witness an experience of revolutionary ideas, which if, successful will help it walk through the lane of excellence and will further its position towards the top in the race amongst the countries worldwide.
By: Ridhi Khurana
Literary source:
yourstory.com
Economic times
Image source:
Hindustan times.
